ART REVIEW; Coloring a Tropical Paradise

By BENJAMIN GENOCCHIO

Published: December 3, 2006

''Tropicalisms,'' at the Jersey City Museum, is a capacious, savory, warmly inviting exhibition in which you can lose yourself for hours. The largest group show ever presented at the museum's Montgomery Street building, it pulls together the works of almost 40 artists from New Jersey and New York around the idea of ''tropical landscape.'' It also coincides with ''Tropic?a: A Revolution in Brazilian Culture,'' an exhibition at the Bronx Museum of the Arts.

The curatorial premise of the show is, however, a little fuzzy, in part because the concept of the tropical landscape is so broad. But from what I can gather reading through the copious wall texts and the exhibition catalog online, here it is essentially a curatorial stand-in for Latin America, along with the Caribbean nations that have long been associated with clich?visions of an unexploited tropical paradise.

Selected by Roc?Aranda-Alvarado, the artists in the exhibition use this hoary representation of the Latin American landscape either to subvert misconceptions about the area, its peoples and histories, or to affirm lovingly or satirically aspects of the stereotype. Also floating around are tentative commentaries on the legacy of European colonization and the influence of the United States on the economy and politics of the region.

The exhibition is well stocked with images of palm trees, one of the most representative images of tropical paradise. Among them is Jeff Jacobson's brightly colored photograph of palm trees silhouetted against a dramatic tropical sunset, the view framed by an ugly window bracket suggesting that the image was taken from a cheap hotel room -- the kind you find throughout resorts in the tropics. It is the classic tourist snapshot, tinged with an air of tackiness.

Ms. Aranda-Alvarado has also incorporated works from the museum's permanent collection, including two lush 19th-century paintings of idealized, romanticized tropical landscapes by the American painters Norton Bush and G. Jerome. These paintings conjure up the association of the American continent with an exotic and untamed paradise, especially the Jerome, which is a compilation of wild, tropical-like vegetation rather than a reflection of reality. Here the tropical landscape becomes a fantasy space, imagined by the artist.

Ocean, beaches, islands, exotic fruit and lush forests are among the other tropical themes recycled in these works. A sampling fills Nicol?Dumit Est?z's concertina book of postcard images, featuring the artist in various guises taking part in classic vacation activities. The 2005 piece is titled, ''She tans. He sails. She swims. He surfs. She shops. He dives.'' Then there are Deborah Jack's peaceful video of the motion of ocean waves, and the goofy photographs of facelike images found on coconuts -- each named for a rum drink -- by Monika Broz and Andrew Wilkinson.

The importance of sugar cane, tobacco and other plantation crops to the Caribbean can be seen in several of the works. The best of these is Vandana Jain's ''Sugar Nintendos'' (2004), replicas of Nintendo video games cast in granulated sugar. Here Ms. Jain playfully contrasts the export goods of many tropical nations, like those in the Caribbean, with the kind of items they import. The implication is that tropical economies have not kept pace with world technological change.

A more humorous take on a related issue characterizes ''Pure Plantainum'' (2006), by Miguel Luciano, a Puerto Rican sculptor. He uses the green plantain, a staple of the Caribbean, as an ethnic signifier, platinum-plating it and transforming it into an object of desire. He hangs it on a thick silver chain, much like the heavy jewelry worn by hip-hop stars.

Then there are works dealing with tourist perceptions of the tropics as a romantic getaway. Drawing on advertising imagery, Nicole Awai has enlarged and reproduced the picture on a package of Black Love incense, showing a nude black couple embracing in a stream surrounded by tropical vegetation and a waterfall. The deadpan irony of the gesture is both amusing and telling.

An engagement with political issues, historical events and personal narratives is also evident to varying degrees in other artworks here. This material points to a longer, complex story about the ideas, images and concepts associated with the tropical landscape -- a story that takes us beyond the realm of art and properly into academic disciplines like history and postcolonial theory. In the end, art can say and do only so much.